The young lady of Count Zimmer headed towards the location written on the note, wary of anyone following her.
She was determined to reveal the true face of Duke Amaterasu’s daughter to the Empress’s messenger.
[This is the timeline separator]“Butler, someone from the Radcliffe merchant guild has arrived. What should we do?”
At the servant’s question, the butler of the Cardia ducal family pondered for a moment.
He hadn’t heard anything specific about this matter.
Currently, the master of the mansion, Duke Cardia, was in a meeting with his vassal knights.
He could ask if the Duke had ordered items from the Radcliffe merchant guild, but he was concerned about interrupting unnecessarily.
The butler only allowed the Radcliffe merchant guild’s carriage to enter the Cardia ducal residence after checking the time the meeting had started.
Based on his experience, he judged that the meeting would conclude within an hour at the latest.
As soon as the butler gave permission, the Radcliffe merchant guild’s carriage entered the Cardia ducal residence.
And the butler’s eyes widened when he saw who alighted from the guild’s carriage.
Jieselgrante gave a light nod to the surprised butler and said,
“There are circumstances.”
“…Please come inside for now. The Duke is currently in a meeting. I will inform him of your visit, but as for when it will end…”
The butler trailed off, observing Jieselgrante’s expression.
“I’m fine. I’ll wait. I didn’t make an appointment before coming, after all. I don’t want to interfere with the Duke’s work.”
Jieselgrante conveyed that there was no need to inform the busy Duke Cardia about her visit.
“Yes, then…”
The butler bowed slightly to her with an apologetic yet relieved expression.
The butler told the maids standing by the door to prepare tea and then left the reception room.
As she sat on the sofa, her gaze was caught by the large fountain visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The water stream flowing from the round water jug on the woman’s shoulder splashed against the circular stone floor, creating a spray.
A rainbow appeared and disappeared repeatedly amidst the scattered water droplets.
After staring blankly at that scene for a while, Jieselgrante lowered her gaze to the red carpet.
‘I wonder if it’s alright.’
Currently, the young lady of Count Greykin was trapped inside a large wooden box, loaded onto the Radcliffe merchant guild’s cargo carriage.
While there were gaps in the wooden box so breathing wouldn’t be a problem, it probably wouldn’t be a pleasant memory.
Being confined for hours in darkness, unable to move, with walls closing in on all sides.
So she wanted to get her out of there as soon as possible.
But she didn’t want to cause trouble when she had come to ask for a favor.
‘Still, it’s fortunate…’
Ever since meeting the young lady of Count Zimmer, a part of her heart had been heavy.
Wondering what if all the maids she had given to her were the Empress’s people.
But after meeting and talking with her directly, she became certain that the young lady of Count Greykin was not one of the Empress’s people.
So she decided to protect her.
Because she was one of the few people on her side in her short life.
She wanted to protect her.
From past experience, she had somewhat grasped the Empress’s thought process.
That the Empress would surely try to root out and eliminate those involved if she was displeased with the trial results.
After obtaining information at Countess Tarel’s salon that the young lady of Count Zimmer was one of the Empress’s people, Jieselgrante had intended to use her as a hidden card.
That’s why she had Ola stay by her side and watch her.
But with each report from Ola about the young lady of Count Zimmer, her disappointment grew.
Even though someone she had been with for years had died, the young lady of Count Zimmer didn’t seem to feel any sadness.
Setting aside whether she was directly involved in Trinity’s death, she maintained an utterly cold attitude.
It was the same when they met face to face.
Although she didn’t know what mistake the young lady of Count Zimmer had made to her in the past, she could sense no will to repent in that attitude.
She could easily predict that even if confronted about betraying Princess Trinity, she would show the same reaction.
[This is the timeline separator]As Cabelased was leaving the conference room, he looked at the butler waiting for him in the hallway and asked,
“Did something happen?”
The butler glanced at the nobles quickly exiting the conference room and then whispered in his ear.
“…Who did you say came?”
Cabelased doubted his ears for a moment.
‘She said she’d be careful not to run into me, so why did she come here on her own?’
After briefly wondering about her unexpected visit, Cabelased immediately spoke.
“Where is Jieselgrante now?”
The butler looked around with a slightly flustered expression.
His face clearly showed that he thought the name was used too familiarly.
The butler, who had been watching the backs of the nobles already far away, soon answered.
“The young lady is waiting in the reception room on the second floor.”
“Let’s go there.”
As Cabelased was heading straight to the reception room, he suddenly voiced a question that occurred to him.
“How long has she been here?”
“Ah… about thirty minutes, I believe.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Cabelased turned to look at the butler as he asked.
“When I told her that you were in a meeting, the young lady said she didn’t want to disturb you and would wait until the meeting was over.”
It was a perfectly normal answer.
They hadn’t made an appointment to meet, and she had come to the mansion without even knowing if he was there or not.
But somehow it made him feel uncomfortable. The butler, noticing his change in mood, cautiously asked,
“Why… are you asking?”
“It’s nothing.”
Cabelased shook his head lightly and headed towards the reception room.
Being tall with long legs, his strides were naturally quick, but the butler couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somewhat impatient.
So the butler, without even thinking of seeing off the nobles who had attended the meeting, followed behind Cabelased almost at a run.
[This is the timeline separator]‘Is the meeting not over yet?’
Jieselgrante paced by the door.
Even though the butler had left and she had gone to check on the young lady of Count Greykin in the cargo carriage herself, the feeling of unease continued.
And for good reason.
In fact, when she was young, she had once been trapped in a box slightly smaller than the wooden box the young lady of Count Greykin was currently in.
She thought she had forgotten about it since it was quite long ago, but facing a similar situation naturally brought back those memories.
‘No, don’t think about it.’
Jieselgrante quickly shook her head from side to side.
Since it was better to focus on something else to shake off unpleasant memories, she immediately looked around the reception room.
Then she noticed a frame that was turned face down in one corner of the display cabinet.
As she stared at the frame, Jieselgrante made an assumption.
‘A portrait of an ex-lover or something…’
She chuckled at her own thought.
She knew well that he wouldn’t have an ex-lover or anything of the sort.
If Cabelased had been seeing a woman, she would have been on the lips of gossips for days on end.
They would have been talking about it at every social gathering.
‘But why is the frame turned face down?’
The reason could be narrowed down to one of two possibilities.
It was either accidentally overturned, or deliberately placed face down.
Since the possibility of it being accidentally overturned was low, she concluded that this was something Cabelased had deliberately turned over.
‘If it’s something he doesn’t want to see, he could just put it away separately.’
Even as she thought this, her gaze kept being drawn to it.
Perhaps it was because she was bored waiting for the meeting to end.
‘He probably wasn’t trying to hide it.’
After rationalizing like this, Jieselgrante reached out for the frame.
Deciding to just take a quick look at what was inside.
In the frame, slightly larger than her palm, was a portrait of a beautiful woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, holding a newborn baby in her arms.
Jieselgrante’s gaze, puzzled by the face resembling the previous Empress, stopped at the dress the woman was wearing.
‘This dress, it looks like it’s made from Solzakai fabric.’
Not just anyone could get their hands on Solzakai fabric.
In Solzakai, only the royal family wore clothes made from that fabric, and they didn’t sell it separately except for gifting small amounts to foreign royalty for friendship.
The necklace the beauty in the portrait was wearing was also quite familiar.
There was no need to try hard to remember where she had seen it.
It was identical to the one worn by her mother, the previous Empress, in the portrait she saw every day before going to sleep.
The Empress’s accessories were specially crafted by artisans for her alone.
Of course, she had heard that there were noble ladies who, out of admiration for the Empress, commissioned pieces with similar designs…
Jieselgrante’s blue pupils began to tremble finely as she stared at the frame.
The necklace, the dress made of Solzakai fabric, the appearance so resembling the previous Empress.
Several pieces of evidence pointed to the fact that the woman in this portrait was the previous Empress.
Except for one thing.
The hair color of the newborn baby the woman in the portrait was holding was black.
If this was indeed a portrait of the previous Empress, the baby’s hair should have been a light silver.
Just like Trinity’s hair had been.
“What are you doing?”
A low voice sounded from behind her.
“…!”
Jieselgrante’s shoulders jerked in surprise. At the same time, her hand slipped, causing her to drop the frame she was holding.
Male lead is a Destined Young Husband (Female-dominant)
One-sentence summary: Wife-master, listen to my explanation!
Li Ruantang, a young lady from a prestigious family, stumbled and fell. When she woke up, she saw a noble and beautiful young man sitting by her bedside, wiping away tears.
The young master had slightly reddened eyes, and his every move exuded charm.
The sight made Li Ruantang’s eyes hot and her heart flutter. After all, she had made a bet with the young master Meng from the neighboring family. If she couldn’t marry a husband before the end of the year, she would have to admit defeat and give up the jade she had worked so hard to obtain.
Outside the window, the flowers were in full bloom.
Rather than losing the bet, the jade, and her face, Li Ruantang calculated that it would be better to seek marriage with the young master in front of her, killing three birds with one stone.
…
Meng Jun never thought that an accident during a spring outing would lead to them rolling down a cliff and into a river, yet still survive.
Now they were trapped in an unknown village, and Meng Jun had overheard that the family who had rescued them had their own intentions.
After all, it was Li Ruantang who had lost her mind and sought marriage first. He was only trying to protect himself!
Glancing at Li Ruantang, who was listing her own merits, the young husband’s voice softened, and he blushed as he lied, “W-wife-master, Wife-master, don’t you remember me?”
The young husband’s voice was clear and handsome, coaxing Li Ruantang’s heart to be soft and sweet, and she spared no effort to protect him.
It wasn’t until they returned to the capital that Li Ruantang suddenly remembered.
When they had fallen off the cliff, in order not to implicate Wei Yunruo, whom he secretly admired, the young husband had instead pulled her, who was slightly farther away, down the cliff with him…
Short summary by Yuushi L: Initially, the male lead (ML) liked another girl, while the female lead (FL) liked the ML. Both fell off a cliff. The FL temporarily lost her memory, and the ML, fearing others might take advantage of him, claimed FL was his wife while they were staying in a village. Later, when they returned home, the FL regained her memories and remembered that the ML liked someone else, so she kept her distance from him. However, during their time living together in the countryside, the ML’s view of the FL had completely changed. From this point, his pursuit of the FL begins.
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